


Sadists and Martyrs: a love story

by kali



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: BDSM, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Dirty Talk, Id Fic, Knifeplay, M/M, Stone Top, Top Bucky Barnes, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8408080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kali/pseuds/kali
Summary: Bucky might put a bullet in someone who even briefly imagined doing to Steve exactly what Bucky's doing to him right now.--it's sort of like sadomasochism... only different.--[Each chapter is self-contained.]





	1. Sadists and Martyrs

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know how this happened.  
> \---  
> [content notes at the end.]

It wouldn't be accurate to say that he loves Steve more than anything, but that's only because Bucky no longer has the capacity to love, at least not the way other humans mean when they use the word. It makes sense, though: he's not sure that human as an adjective really applies to him anymore.

But.

When he looks at Steve these days, or even thinks about him really, he's conscious of this vast hunger that he can't ever seem to satisfy completely, no matter how close they get. There's always an itch there that he keeps wanting to scratch till it bleeds. Even when his dick's so sore he thinks he might have fucked the skin right off it with his fist, he can still get hard thinking about forcing Steve to the ground, just screwing him into the floor and keeping him there forever. He wants to swallow Steve, to carve him open and crawl inside, wants to turn him inside out just so he can finally see every last part. He wants to fill him up until his entire universe is _Bucky, Bucky, Bucky_ without room for a single other thought, he wants Steve spilling his guts out just for him, just because he thinks Bucky might like it.

He can't give into this feeling most of the time, because then he'd really need to be locked up.

Sometimes, though, Steve indulges him and Bucky knows he's never done anything in his whole life to deserve anything even half as good as this.

Steve's naked and tied to the bed with the kind of rope you get at Home Depot because he likes the way it looks, and it'll cut into Steve a little. He's got duct tape across Steve's mouth because on nights like these he doesn't have the patience for fancy, and when he pulls it off, it'll make Steve wince and tear up.

"You'd just let me fuck you up, wouldn't you," Bucky says, low. He's flipping his knife lazily with his right hand and he watches Steve's eyes track it as he does. He smiles nastily. "Yeah, you would."

Steve can't speak, but he blushes and his pupils dilate, which Bucky knows is the closest Steve can get to yes at the moment.

"Sometimes, I think about it," he muses. "All the things you'd let me do to you if I had a mind to. I could make you lick my boots, tongue my ass for hours, tie you down and beat the hell out of you, turn you out, pass you around like a party favor, and you'd say you liked it. Because you just don't know how to say no to me, do you."

He reaches down, rips the duct tape off in one stinging motion and then he presses on the corner of Steve's mouth with his metal thumb, bearing down ruthlessly as Steve's lips part a little and he hisses with pain. "That's right, sweetheart," he says, "you know I like hearing you."

Steve closes his eyes and Bucky sees tears glistening on his stupidly long lashes. He bends down and licks at them delicately, tasting that faint hint of salt.

"You want to stop?" he asks, and Steve shakes his head, no.

Bucky smiles. "Aw, you're trying so hard to be good for me, aren't you?"

Steve is breathing heavily now, and Bucky can tell he's trying not to tense up too much and break the ropes. "Christ, you're pathetic," he says. "All right, go on and bust out of there."

"No--" Steve's voice sounds hoarse and broken, like it's being torn out from somewhere deep inside him. Bucky wants to listen to it forever. "Don't--I can--"

"Shut up and do what I tell you," Bucky orders flatly. Steve barely has to flex his muscles to get out of the rope, which makes Bucky's dick twitch helplessly, knowing that Steve has been forcing himself to lie there and take whatever Bucky wants to give him. The rope's left red welts that will disappear in minutes but right now look like someone's been at Steve's smooth skin with narrow strips of sandpaper.

Bucky smirks at him. "Looks painful," he observes, running a hand possessively over the marks.

Steve gulps in a deep breath and nods.

He places the knife on the bedside table, within easy reach, and then climbs on top of Steve, shirtless but otherwise still fully dressed. He's holding Steve's wrists together up above his head with his flesh hand and he can feel Steve's dick harden as it rubs against the rough fabric of Bucky's jeans. He taps Steve's mouth, not gently. "Open up for me," he says, and when Steve parts his lips, he jams two metal fingers in. "You know how many people I've killed with this hand?"

Steve lets his eyelids squeeze shut and Bucky's not going to let him get away that easy. He takes his fingers out and slaps him across the face, not full force, but not a love-tap either. "Eyes open, pal," he warns, and Steve obeys. "Go on, answer me."

Steve's eyes lock with his and he nods, minutely.

"I might as well be sticking a gun barrel in your mouth," Bucky says contemptuously, sliding his fingers back in and fucking Steve's mouth with them now. "But you'd give my gun a nice suck job, too, right? You're not that particular."

Steve keens around his hand and Bucky has to take a deep breath in order to stay in control because it feels so fucking good, he thinks he might actually die from pleasure. When he finally pulls his fingers out, Steve arches up to mouth at his shoulder, writing love letters into the seam between metal and flesh with his tongue. Bucky tenses and shudders; the world stutters and slows as Steve kisses his scars, laps at them slow and wet and hot, gasping and moaning as if he could come just from this.

When Bucky can't take it anymore, he pulls away from Steve.

"I'm gonna make you come now," he says. "And you're going to stay real still for me."

Steve watches him carefully as he retrieves the knife and holds it against Steve's thigh. "You better not thrust up," Bucky advises," or you're gonna cut yourself open and you'll only have yourself to blame."

Steve swallows helplessly and Bucky grins to himself. "If you could just control yourself," he says reasonably, "I wouldn't have to help you out."

Steve makes a perfect little hurt sound at that and it's so good, Bucky has to get his mouth on him. He licks a single delicate line up the shaft and hears Steve groan, but he manages to stay still as Bucky sucks him all the way in. His dick gets impossibly harder in Bucky's mouth when he sucks and he can't help smiling around it. Steve is fisting the sheets, trying so hard not to move and Bucky tortures him, lightly scraping over his balls with his nails, using his teeth and tongue and fingers to play him like a piano, stopping whenever Steve gets close, just so he can hear his broken, pleading noises, all the while relentlessly holding the sharp edge of the blade against his skin like a warning. Steve can't help moving a little when he comes, and when Bucky rears his head back he can see the tiny beads of blood welling where the knife's cutting into Steve's skin. Without moving the knife, Bucky presses his lips to the cut. The copper blood taste mingles with the tang of semen in his mouth, and he reaches out his tongue to nick it slightly against the blade, lets his blood mix with Steve's blood and come, like he could keep Steve with him forever that way.

When his heart's stopped pounding in his chest, he gets up to get Steve a glass of water. "You okay?" he asks and Steve's eyes drift open. He smiles at Bucky and opens his arms so that Bucky will lean down and wrap himself around him.

Bucky gets into bed and pulls Steve on top of him. He's tracing idle figure eights into Steve's back when Steve mutters, "love you" into his shoulder, his voice rough and raw and so soft that Bucky knows he wants plausible deniability. He whispers it over and over, ragged and sincere, "love you, love you so much."

He presses a kiss into Steve's hair. "Yeah," he says softly. "I know you do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kind of imagine Bucky & Steve buying some funky colored sex shop rope one time because hey, the future! and then they try it out and Bucky gets the giggles and then they end up having silly vanilla sex instead. 
> 
> content note: Bucky doesn't enjoy coming to orgasm with other people, so he and Steve don't do that together. In the course of this scene, Bucky says and does some pretty brutal things to Steve, who doesn't necessarily enjoy them while they're happening exactly, but who is definitely really into the whole experience regardless.


	2. Spare Us Both Another Scene Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You can tap out any time, but once we start, I’m not gonna stop myself until I’m done being angry. And I gotta tell you, I’m pretty mad, Steve. You sure you want to do this?”_  
>  \--  
> (It’s probably not what you think.)

Bucky inhales, then exhales, nice and slow. Does it again, and then again, trying a little desperately for that calm space between breaths. Although maybe he’s making a huge mistake trying for calm, when calm for him is so close to cold and cold is so close to, well, himself: get the shot, any means necessary, and hell, enjoy it if you can, ‘cause it’s the only thing you’re ever gonna get.

One more time: breathe in, breathe out.

He just shouldn’t let himself get angry is the thing. When he’s mad, he feels every last thing, but cares about fuck all. That’s a bad look on anyone, probably, let alone someone like him, who’s in a real exclusive club where the other members are mostly honest-to-god Nazis and fucking super villains.

Anger is a hard habit to break, though, and it’s been with him for almost a century now so it’s not like it’s getting easier, even if it’s five thousand times more important than it ever used to be when his moods didn’t have an actual body count. It’s more important than ever not to be angry and unfortunately, that makes it so much more tempting to give into it, when he has to try so hard not to all the time. He wants to relax. He wants to let go. He wants to not worry about all the things that a real person could handle, no problem, but that he has to remind himself of constantly: killing someone—anyone—matters. Hell, just hurting someone _matters_. Even himself. Probably.

When he’s angry, he thinks it would be so easy to let the rage wash over him and sweep him off the hook that he’s got to keep himself on.

Looking out onto the world through crosshairs—it’s simple, axiomatic. You aim for the weakest, most undefended spot and hit it with everything you’ve got, no holds barred. Bucky can make a weapon out of anything from that perch and any weapon he has, he won’t hesitate to use.

Some things you can’t come back from.

He realizes he’s clenching his fists, and consciously relaxes them. He doesn’t look at Steve, the self-sacrificial _idiot_ who doesn’t care at all that he’s got Bucky’s whole world wrapped up in that skin he’s so goddamn casual about. He just keeps staring out the glass windowpane onto their garden. The rain’s coming down in sheets and it’s so gray even the two pops of color on the sill—a tiny yet terrifying blood-red cactus (gift from Nat) and the basil (Bucky is learning to cook)—look dulled and beaten.

“Buck? _Bucky_. Hey, asshole. You planning on acknowledging my existence anytime soon?” Steve asks, frustrated, not shouting yet, but getting close. “Did you think about what I said? Do you even want to try and get past this?”

Bucky doesn’t answer.

“Oh, yeah, the silent treatment, that always goes well. Look when people--”

“Jesus _god_ , Steve, do you ever let up?” He’s startled to realize he’s raised his voice. He never shouts anymore. It’s weird. “I don’t know what people do, okay? Who the hell are these fucking people you keep comparing us to?”

“Normal people, Buck. Regular people.”

Bucky laughs, bitter. “Well, there’s a fucking useful exercise right there, trying to do what “regular” people do, not that we’ve ever met any. Not at all impossible or anything because, guess what, we’ve never been normal and we sure as shit aren’t now.” He feels the rage well up inside him and determinedly tamps it down. “So you want to fuck, huh? I could only do this one way right now, and it’s not a good way when I’m like this. I won’t want to stop. Not while I’m still mad.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, unimpressed, “that’s sort of the point, isn’t it?”

Bucky wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him, wants to throw him up against the wall and slam him into it repeatedly, wants to hammer at his skull with his metal fist until he can manage to drive some sense into Steve’s head. “You don’t get it,” he says, finally.

“Maybe if you explain it to me, I will,” Steve snaps. Yeah, they’re careening towards this particular cliff at great speed.

He shakes his head to clear it, and when that doesn’t work bangs his head lightly against the glass door. “I know what you’re thinking, okay? Tell me if I got this right: you’re thinking, let’s fuck now, I’ll let Bucky do whatever he wants to me, I can take it, and when he’s done, sure, maybe I’ll be a little banged up, but everything will be aces and hey, I’ll heal, I’m a fucking supersoldier. And maybe that would work if I was normal, Steve, like you say, but I’m not,”—he laughs humorlessly—“yeah, I’m really, really not. So you can’t fuck your way out of this one, sorry. You’re just gonna have to deal with me being pissed until I get over it.”

Steve comes up behind him and even now, even after all this time, it feels slightly jarring, how he’s taller than Bucky now and always will be. “You ever think I don’t _want_ normal?” he says, resting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky tries not to flinch away, tries to just relax underneath it. “Maybe I just want you.”

Bucky grimaces. “Yeah, maybe. But not this version of me.”

Steve shrugs. “Not every day, maybe.”

\--

Bucky is waiting for him, but not like he’d expected and steeled himself for, with some new inventive way to fuck him up, restrain him, mag-cuffs maybe, so Bucky can put him where he wants, make sure he stays there until Bucky’s good and ready to let him out. Steve’s prepared for that, prepared to be held in some way he can’t get out of even if he wanted to.

It’s not the set up: he’d expected that, too, the array of weapons and toys. Bucky’s wanted to scare him before, wanted him to worry about what he might do if he were unleashed. He’s pulled out his gun and stuck it in Steve’s mouth before, as if Steve doesn’t know that Bucky would kill himself sooner than point a loaded gun anywhere near his vicinity.

It’s always startling—and Steve has to be honest, arousing—Bucky looming above him, his metal arm holding him down, choking him a little maybe, him imagining the Winter Soldier choking him or punching his face like he’d done before, and wondering if maybe this time it’s for real again, that this time Bucky will hold him down till he has to give up, really give up and let go. It’s fucked up, obviously, and he knows Bucky would never actually do it, would never even think about doing it, but Steve also knows on some level, maybe that’s what he wants, what they both want. A still point, where they can both rest and never leave.

Steve has to blink a couple of times, actually, because even though they’ve never done anything quite like this, exactly, he’d had a vision of how it would go. There’d be some kind of ritual to it, a whip maybe, something serious that Bucky has never been willing to do before. He would hold on, through it all, whatever it was and maybe this time he’d show Bucky for once and for all that he could let himself off the leash, that Steve trusted him, that he knew to the core of his being that Bucky would never harm him in a way he couldn’t take, in a way that he didn’t in some ways kinda like. The way he both loved and hated jumping out of an airplane and feeling his heartbeat pulsing in his ears like a song. There was something about that kind of terror, that bruising pain, that couldn’t stop him, that would never stop him, no matter how his skin screamed and thrilled, how the adrenaline burned, thrumming through his veins. There’s just nothing like it.

Whatever it turned out to be, Steve would take it all and tell Bucky without words—which would embarrass the hell out of them both—that they were _together_ no matter what. He could apologize without lying for doing something that he knew he’d do again and wasn’t even really sorry for.

He’d be forgiven and he’d have fucking earned it and Bucky would hold him afterwards, all his anger spent, would look down at him with that soft look in his eyes that Steve has never seen turned on anyone else, not a single girl that Bucky loved and left back in Brooklyn, and everything would be fucking _fine_.

But no, Bucky is waiting for him, kneeling, hands cuffed behind his back. He’s bare-chested and Steve’s gaze is drawn instantly—it’s like gravity—to the scars along his scapula where metal meets flesh. Even now just seeing the scars, with Bucky kneeling, _kneeling_ , as if he was waiting for a command, makes rage boil up inside him. He’s wearing the pants from his old uniform even, he notices clinically, distantly, which Steve had predicted actually, but that’s shocking too, because he’s barefoot. Without the combat boots, somehow he looks entirely different. It recasts him, makes him look vulnerable and open, with him kneeling, legs splayed a little.

Steve hates it. It makes him a little dizzy, lightheaded even.

“Get the fuck up,” Steve says, “what are you doing?”

Bucky’s hair is tied back but he didn’t bother to do a good job; it’s falling around his face and Steve steps forward involuntarily and brushes it back with his fingers before he can stop himself.

Bucky raises his eyes to meet Steve’s. “You’re tapping out already? That was fast.” His voice is cool. Disinterested. Disappointed maybe, but not really, like he didn’t expect anything better.

“Hell, no,” Steve finds himself saying furiously, even though, god, he wants to.

“Fine,” Bucky says. “Go on over there and pick something out. Not a gun.”

Everything in Steve screams at him not to do this, but somehow he walks over to the bed where Bucky’s scattered a belt, a length of fucking chain, jesus, and a staggering selection of guns and knives. They’re dark stripes--sharp, jagged and black against the soft white bedspread. Steve feels like his vision is narrowing a little, there’s a slight haze at the edges.

Steve knows it’s coming, but it feels like a whiplash when Bucky laughs under his breath as he sees the belt—he can hear Bucky’s voice saying, _god, you’re pathetic, it’s almost sad, really_ , and it burns just like it does when he says it out loud.

“Do I have to tell you how to do everything? Go on.”

“H-how”—Steve clears his throat and steadies his voice, cursing himself—“How many?”

If this were any other day, Bucky might laugh now, he might make fun of Steve a little. Instead Bucky just looks at Steve, gray eyes still level and cold, no half smile ghosting around his mouth. “Till I tell you to stop.”

Bucky’s lips look red and bruised: he must have been biting them, god, he must have been _nervous_ and Steve wants to fall through the floor, wants the earth to swallow him whole.

“Do it,” Bucky orders him, and Steve does. He wants to half-ass it, but he can’t face Bucky's contempt and so he brings the belt down with considerable force and it cracks across Bucky’s back. Steve didn’t do it right, he realizes, he got Bucky with the edge, leaving a thin red welt slicing his back.

He’s never done this to anyone before, never even had it done to him: his dad died before he was born.

He does it again, and then again. At first Bucky doesn’t make a sound, but then he grunts a little when Steve begins to catch already ragged skin, even though he’s trying to place each stroke so they don’t overlap, but it’s getting harder and harder, and then Bucky lets out a gasp that sounds almost like a sob. Steve swings around instantly, grasps Bucky’s jaw and pulls it up so he can see his face. There are tears in Bucky’s eyes and his lip is bloody now. Steve leans forward, he can’t help himself, he kneels down, he kisses Bucky deep and slow. It feels so good, that press of contact. He feels himself harden; he’s been waiting for this, hasn’t had it for days, weeks, years it feels like. He wants, god, he doesn’t know what he wants, except to feel more of Bucky, get closer somehow.

Steve presses his mouth to Bucky’s neck; he wants to trace reverent apologies against Bucky’s skin with his tongue.

But Bucky rears back, shakes his head. He’s not done and Steve was an idiot to think that he was.

“Pick out a gun or a knife this time. I’ll be nice and let you choose.”

“They’re not loaded, are they?” Steve says.

Bucky doesn’t answer, just nods towards the bed, and Steve swallows. He knows—he does know, doesn’t he?—that Bucky wouldn’t ask him to _shoot_ him, but—. He takes a knife and knows instantly he’s made a mistake when Bucky gives him a feral grin.

“Good choice,” he says. “Now come here.”

When Steve’s standing in front of him, Bucky says, “Knife to the throat.”

Steve balks, but Bucky just keeps staring at him, challenge in his eyes, and at least it’s not that broken-open look he had before. He does it.

“Now take your dick out. Fuck my face. I want to feel your dick in my throat, you understand me? Make me gag on it. Do it hard. Like you mean it.”

Steve’s left hand is shaking as he tries to unfasten his pants one-handed. Bucky has sucked him off more times than he can count, but not like this, not kneeling in front of him. Bucky hasn’t said, but Steve knows he always likes to control the angle, control how much he takes. Steve tries not to think about why.

Bucky swallows him down to the root, and Steve moves like he was told, thrusts into him, as if he doesn’t care about him at all, as if he’s just using his mouth like a hole to get off in, and it’s _Bucky_. Steve grits his teeth; he’s got a knife to Bucky’s throat and Bucky’s eyes are watering, he’s making little pained grunts around Steve’s cock as he thrusts against the back of his throat and Steve is coming, coming, coming and there’s dampness on his face, god, he’s crying and he’s coming and he doesn’t know what’s happening.

He flings the knife away, stumbles to the dresser to find the key for the cuffs. He presses it against them and they unlock, releasing Bucky’s wrists. The right one is bruised from working against the cuffs.

Steve sits down, back against the foot of their bed. He closes his eyes for a second, tries to breathe. He opens them when he feels a hand on his shoulder, metal cool against his neck. Bucky’s been holding him there to comfort him his entire life it feels like—hand wrapped around his collar bone, gripping him and tethering him to earth. An anchor. He’s got a bottle of water. He’s taking care of Steve. Like always.

“You okay, sweetheart?” _Sweetheart_. Bucky is really worried.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles. “You’re the one who got hurt. I’m supposed to be doing this for you.”

Bucky shakes his head at him, gives him an affectionate shake like he would a puppy. “Aw, Stevie, no. C’mon, come here, lean against me, that’s right. I hurt you, I know it. I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry. But you were so good, you were so tough for me.”

Steve shakes his head. He wasn’t. He could’ve been better. Bucky was—

“It wasn’t fair of me, Steve, and I know better. I,” he pauses, looking for words. His voice is rough—hoarse and raw, and Steve flinches inwardly a little. “You make me so mad. It’s like you don’t know that you can break me. I know it doesn’t change anything, and I don’t even want it to. You’re Steve and you’re always gonna be Steve. But... I just wanted you to see is all. Every time you get hurt, you’re carrying me with you, too.”

Steve nods against his chest. He can remember that. He will.

“Drink some water for me, okay, champ?” Steve tilts his face up for the water and sees Bucky looking down at him fondly. There’s that look, what he’s been missing like oxygen.

 _Hey_ , Steve thinks helplessly, _what do you know? It worked_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title (and inspiration for this ficlet) is from an episode in Louisa May Alcott's _Little Men_. Yup, I went there. The 19th century is great for kink. Somehow I keep writing this ridiculous PWP series whenever I'm RIGHT in the middle of a chapter from The Fight Game. Send help. Or you know, other kinks I can subvert for these two jerks.

**Author's Note:**

> eta: if you feel like chatting about the various different kinky ways Bucky and Steve might fuck, hit me up on tumblr @ [superkalifragilistic](http://superkalifragilistic.tumblr.com/) or come say hi in the comments!


End file.
